Explore Newbury: Walking Tours 2023

Walking Tours Information
All walks start at 10.30am and last 1.5 hours
Tickets £6.25 for adults, £3.75 for children under 12 (including booking fee).
Battlefield Walks starts at the Bowlers Arms in Wash Common.
Town Walks start at the Corn Exchange.

Walking Tours Dates:

25 July (Tuesday) - A History of Newbury
A circular walk in the town centre looking at Newbury’s history from its Norman foundation to the present day.
Your guide: Philip Wood

1 August (Tuesday) - Newbury in the War
A circular walk in the centre of Newbury looking at the buildings and sites made use of during WWI and WWII. It includes local defences and places of entertainment.
Your guide: Jane Burrell

8 August (Tuesday) Lost Churches and Chapels
Your guide: Jane Burrell

15 August (Tuesday) Lost Pubs of Newbury
Your guide: Philip Wood

22 August (Tuesday) Northbrook Street and Speenhamland
A walk along Northbrook Street to the Clock Tower, to talk about Newbury during the coaching era, and the Speenhamland System. Along the way it takes in a range of historic buildings, including the 17th-century building at the heart of Camp Hopson and Jack of Newbury’s house. Your guide: David Peacock

29 August (Tuesday) Tudor Newbury
Starting in the Market Place, this moves to St Nicolas Church (where three Protestants were condemned to death), on to West Mills (site of cloth-fulling mills) and then back along the Kennet to Northbrook Street, the old Tudor café and Jack of Newbury’s house.
Your guide: David Peacock

17 September (Sunday) The First Battle of Newbury
The walk starts from The Bowler's Arms, (Enborne Street RG14 6TW) and moves north along Enborne Street to Cope Hall Lane, where Essex brought his troops up onto the high plateau of Wash Common. We then turn east along Essex Street towards the Falkland Memorial, moving from the Parliamentary position through ‘no man’s land’ to where the Royalists had spread their soldiers in a defensive position across The Wash, blocking Parliament’s route back to London. Returning towards Enborne Street through the woods by the water tower and the recreation ground. Although the ‘battlefield walk’ focuses mainly on the reason the armies came to be fighting at Newbury and what transpired over the course of that one day, the walk will also touch on items like road names, pub names, the bronze age mounds, enclosure etc. together with questions walkers may have. To help with the explanations there will be an album of maps and old photos to illustrate different points along the way.
Your guide: Dave Stubbs

Your Guides:

David Peacock researches, writes and lectures on the history of the Newbury area. He is the author of The Story of Newbury (2011), has written for local newspapers, taught evening classes, and given talks to many clubs and societies.

Jane Burrell is a former curator of West Berkshire Museum. She continues to give talks and
lectures to local clubs and societies, covering local history, war-time poets, and the
Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Philip Wood is Chairman of Newbury District Field Club - Newbury’s local history society founded
in 1870. He researches, writes and lectures on the history of Newbury, family history, WWI history
and the pubs & breweries of Newbury.

Dave Stubbs. Having had an uneasy relationship with history as a schoolboy, Dave moved to
Newbury in the 1970s to take up the role of ‘local bobby’ for the Wash Common beat. It was here
he dug up a musket ball in his new back garden, which unlocked a whole new passion for ‘local’
history and seeking out the clues – such as field shapes, road names and pub signs that unlock the
story of the place that has been his home ever since.